My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

If I had to guess I'd say many of those "look at all the stars" shots were probably taken with longer shutter times, increasing exposure and thus the number of stars.

My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

I've been to Kandahar a few years back. Sounds odd, but I was kind of looking forward to what the sky would look like without the light pollution. Unfortunately, there was a natural air pollution.. when people say Afghanistan is a desert, it isn't sand like at the beach. The earth is dried up, cracked, with about 3" of a dust that is as fine and light as baby-powder. It. Is. Everywhere. From the moment I stepped off the C130, I was breathing it in, and when taking pictures at night, if you used flash, you could see the reflection off the bits of dust in the air. The sky looked about as starless as it did here in CT. It finally rained there for a couple days, helping "clean" the atmosphere, and the sky look amazing, but nothing at all like it did in those pictures.

My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

My family has some land back in the hills of the Blue Ridge mountains. I've seen some pretty spectacular nights with a clear Milky Way and everything. Not quite as great as these photos, but pretty darn close!

My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

My family has some land back in the hills of the Blue Ridge mountains. I've seen some pretty spectacular nights with a clear Milky Way and everything. Not quite as great as these photos, but pretty darn close!

I live sort of out in the middle of nowhere (closest town is about 10 miles away as the crow flies), and on a cold, clear, moonless night I can see a ton of stars. But yeah, nothing like the enhanced picture.

So... I was visiting the grand-inlaws who were an hour west of Hannibal Mo. The Amish lived up the road. We went to breakfast at the last open business in a town that would have Mayberry 50 years ago but was then almost completely abandoned.

We weren't married yet so the grands made me sleep in the RV out back. I stepped out at 2am to water the plants and I got a face full of deep space.

FTA - As Cohen, whose work will be exhibited at the Danziger Gallery in New York in March, sees it, the loss of the starry skies, accelerated by worldwide population growth in cities, has created an urbanite who "forgets and no longer understands nature." He adds, "To show him stars is to help him dream again."

So, who wants to explain to Cohen that he is not making up quotes for the high school year book?

During Perseid meteor showers a few friends and I used to drive about 2 hours away into the wilderness and lie on the hood and trunk of the car, eat graham crackers and lemonade and watch the universe slip by. It was simply phenomenal.

Gallery of what a clear night sky over major cities would look like without light pollution

...and a several-minute exposure at high ISO.

With normal 20/20 vision and fully dark-adapted eyes, you'll find maybe 3,000 stars naked-eye visible from any one spot at any one time, max. It's beautiful and impressive, but no, it doesn't look like this.

All the same, fark light pollution. My kids have never seen truly dark skies. Forty years ago, it was easy to see the Milky Way even in suburbia.

Next time I am up north in my home state of Michigan, I plan on putting my camera on a good 32+ second exposure with a nice steady tripod and a #9 ND filter and see what kind of star coverage I can get. I'm hoping I will finally be able to see all the things people say are there when I can't see them myself.

jfarkinB:All the same, fark light pollution. My kids have never seen truly dark skies. Forty years ago, it was easy to see the Milky Way even in suburbia.

On a boating trip in southern Missouri, we were able to see the Milky Way perfectly in the sky, with enough light to easily see most objects around us at midnight without an artifical light source. Fifty miles away later that same night, there was not a star to be seen in the sky due to the light pollution from a small town a few miles away. It's really crazy how much poorly directed light we use at night.

miss diminutive:During Perseid meteor showers a few friends and I used to drive about 2 hours away into the wilderness and lie on the hood and trunk of the car, eat graham crackers and lemonade and watch the universe slip by. It was simply phenomenal.

/we were nerds

Did you strip down to your bra and panties and have a tickle fight afterwards?I'm trying to spice up your CSB.

I remember pulling over on the side of the highway in Colorado way out away from anything and getting out of the car and just being absolutely floored by how many stars I could see. How bright it all was. Might not quite have been as those pictures are, but it wasn't very far off either.

Shadowknight:Next time I am up north in my home state of Michigan, I plan on putting my camera on a good 32+ second exposure with a nice steady tripod and a #9 ND filter and see what kind of star coverage I can get. I'm hoping I will finally be able to see all the things people say are there when I can't see them myself.

See if you can get to the Dark Sky Park in the Headlands...pretty impressive.

I just moved from a city of 60,000 to outside a small town of under 1000. On a clear night, I can see the Milky Way. It's awesome.

mr_a:PC LOAD LETTER: Or he could have time traveled to 2003 and taken some shots in NYC during the blackout.

I think you'd also need to turn off every car engine and smokestack for about a year or so, and maybe all sources of artificial heat which puts moisture into the atmosphere.

This. I remember it being typical August heat/haze during the '03 blackout, so there wasn't much to see in the sky.

And as somebody who leaves for work at 3:35 in the morning...muthaFARK light pollution. At that hour your shiatty little carpet store does not need to be lit up inside and out like Caesar's farking Palace, with 2/3 of the lighting bleeding out sideways right into the eyes of drivers like me, from whom you will be getting NO business. (good DAY sir)

Much so-called security lighting is designed with little thought for how eyes-or criminals-operate. Marcus Felson, a professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, has concluded that lighting is effective in preventing crime mainly if it enables people to notice criminal activity as it's taking place, and if it doesn't help criminals to see what they're doing. Bright, unshielded floodlights-one of the most common types of outdoor security lighting in the country-often fail on both counts, as do all-night lights installed on isolated structures or on parts of buildings that can't be observed by passersby (such as back doors). A burglar who is forced to use a flashlight, or whose movement triggers a security light controlled by an infrared motion sensor, is much more likely to be spotted than one whose presence is masked by the blinding glare of a poorly placed metal halide "wall pack." In the early seventies, the public-school system in San Antonio, Texas, began leaving many of its school buildings, parking lots, and other property dark at night and found that the no-lights policy not only reduced energy costs but also dramatically cut vandalism.

Mr_H:Shadowknight: Next time I am up north in my home state of Michigan, I plan on putting my camera on a good 32+ second exposure with a nice steady tripod and a #9 ND filter and see what kind of star coverage I can get. I'm hoping I will finally be able to see all the things people say are there when I can't see them myself.

See if you can get to the Dark Sky Park in the Headlands...pretty impressive.

I just moved from a city of 60,000 to outside a small town of under 1000. On a clear night, I can see the Milky Way. It's awesome.

/inlaws have a cabin in the Adirondack Mountains//that's awesomer

I think I will be taking a trip yo the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this summer with my family to go camping. It can be pretty remote up that way, so I'm hoping it will be enough togwt some of this.

My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

I've been to Kandahar a few years back. Sounds odd, but I was kind of looking forward to what the sky would look like without the light pollution. Unfortunately, there was a natural air pollution.. when people say Afghanistan is a desert, it isn't sand like at the beach. The earth is dried up, cracked, with about 3" of a dust that is as fine and light as baby-powder. It. Is. Everywhere. From the moment I stepped off the C130, I was breathing it in, and when taking pictures at night, if you used flash, you could see the reflection off the bits of dust in the air. The sky looked about as starless as it did here in CT. It finally rained there for a couple days, helping "clean" the atmosphere, and the sky look amazing, but nothing at all like it did in those pictures.

/end CSB

Similar experience in western AFG - the dust so clouds the atmosphere that even with minimal light pollution, you don't see as much as you'd think.

However, out in the middle of the ocean, on a darkened boat, then the sky is amazing. Billions and billions indeed - breathtaking.

My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

I've been to Kandahar a few years back. Sounds odd, but I was kind of looking forward to what the sky would look like without the light pollution. Unfortunately, there was a natural air pollution.. when people say Afghanistan is a desert, it isn't sand like at the beach. The earth is dried up, cracked, with about 3" of a dust that is as fine and light as baby-powder. It. Is. Everywhere. From the moment I stepped off the C130, I was breathing it in, and when taking pictures at night, if you used flash, you could see the reflection off the bits of dust in the air. The sky looked about as starless as it did here in CT. It finally rained there for a couple days, helping "clean" the atmosphere, and the sky look amazing, but nothing at all like it did in those pictures.

/end CSB

Similar experience in western AFG - the dust so clouds the atmosphere that even with minimal light pollution, you don't see as much as you'd think.

However, out in the middle of the ocean, on a darkened boat, then the sky is amazing. Billions and billions indeed - breathtaking.

My wife said the same thing when she was out on the aircraft carrier back in 2001-2004. Nothing but stars and nebulous clouds.

One of my favorite bits when I was back in the military was sleeping on the back deck of a tank in the high California desert. Virtually no natural light within 20 miles, and clear, cloudless air. The sky wasn't that far off those pictures

Back country Yosemite is awesome as well- being up 10k feet makes a big difference in the seeing, and you're not sleeping anyway because if you came up from sea level that morning you're just trying to breathe...

Abe Vigoda's Ghost:miss diminutive: During Perseid meteor showers a few friends and I used to drive about 2 hours away into the wilderness and lie on the hood and trunk of the car, eat graham crackers and lemonade and watch the universe slip by. It was simply phenomenal.

/we were nerds

Did you strip down to your bra and panties and have a tickle fight afterwards?I'm trying to spice up your CSB.

I thought everyone already knew that "graham crackers and lemonade" was code for "marathon trunk orgies".

wildcardjack:So... I was visiting the grand-inlaws who were an hour west of Hannibal Mo. The Amish lived up the road. We went to breakfast at the last open business in a town that would have Mayberry 50 years ago but was then almost completely abandoned.

We weren't married yet so the grands made me sleep in the RV out back. I stepped out at 2am to water the plants and I got a face full of deep space.

jfarkinB:All the same, fark light pollution. My kids have never seen truly dark skies. Forty years ago, it was easy to see the Milky Way even in suburbia.

We have a "security light" on a pole outside. It gives off a soft amber light, nothing too harsh but enough to keep the dark away.

I was at home one night by myself during a storm. The power went out, and that light went out. It was pitch black. No ambient light at all (it was super cloudy). Especially after the storm left and there was nothing but silence (even the insects were quiet). It was very unnerving and I didn't realize how much comfort that one light outside provided (especially since I usually have all the lights off in the house).

But yeah, when the stars are out, its magnificent. During a meteor shower this summer (August I think) I went out to a campsite even farther out in the wilderness then where I lived. There was about 10 families with campers, a local band (who converted a camper into a stage). During the night I sneaked away behind a camper with a lawn chair and just sat and watched the stars, drank some beer and listened to the band. I saw about 20 "shooting stars". The stars just kept getting brighter and more beautiful as the night went on.

One of the reasons I have no desire to live in a city. I can sit on my porch swing and admire the stars on basically any clear night.

A good long exposure photo will show more stars than you can really see. I've taken some and then looked for the extra stars in it. There will be ones that are very faint to the naked eye, but will show up reasonably bright on a long exposure.

Fwiw, one of the tricks is to use the timer on the camera so you don't mess up by shaking it when you hit the button.

padraig: My parents live in bumfark, France, in a small village where all public lightning is turned off after 10PM. Their house is isolated. Even on the clearest night, with no cloud in sight, I've never anything approaching this.

You have to be away from light pollution AND regular pollution as well.

// saw stars like this while driving on a dark road on the less populated side of Maui. Stopped the car (a convertible) at the side of the road and turned the lights off and looked up for a bit.

lordargent:// saw stars like this while driving on a dark road on the less populated side of Maui. Stopped the car (a convertible) at the side of the road and turned the lights off and looked up for a bit.

I did that on an empty stretch of I-90 between Mitchell and Rapid City in South Dakota. It was about 2:00am and I stopped to take a leak on the side of the interstate (cause nobody was around) and looked up an noticed how many stars there were. Turned off the lights a gazed for about ten minutes until I saw some traffic coming on the horizon.

0Icky0:gaspode: The pics are just badly done, and its ridiculous to suggest people will see colourful patches in the milky way... the human eye cannot see that.

You can see the pink in the Eta Carinae Nebula with the naked eye. But that's about it.

I guess maybe in the deep aussie desert or up a mountain in Chile? Eta is probably just bright enough to trigger some colour receptors I guess, so Ill take your word for that! never been able to see a hint of colour there myself.

gaspode:You can see the pink in the Eta Carinae Nebula with the naked eye. But that's about it.

I guess maybe in the deep aussie desert or up a mountain in Chile? Eta is probably just bright enough to trigger some colour receptors I guess, so Ill take your word for that! never been able to see a hint of colour there myself.

Yeah i grew up and work in rural north alberta and I only saw the sky look like that once. Mind you it was 3AM and -30C outside and at our farm and there was no moon.

It was so bright the sky looked navy blue. The snow reflected enough light that you would have been able to go for a walk. It was stellar... Heh. But really -- it was shocking -- and i had grown up with dark clear nights on that farm. Just that one night -- everything looked like a photo from APOD.

I always liked the northern lights -- i remember driving home one night and stopping on the highway to sit on my trucks hood and watch -- they were pink and orange. Usually they are just greenish and pink is rare. Orange northern lights are crazy uncommon and that night the three colours were dancing everywhere. It was like neon knives slashing and stabbing through the night.

On that note im headed to a fire tower for the summer -- its a 1 hour helicopter ride to civilization -- no road access -- the days are 18+ hours of sunlight around solstice but i'm hopeing to have some nice nights of stars.

0Icky0:gaspode: You can see the pink in the Eta Carinae Nebula with the naked eye. But that's about it.

I guess maybe in the deep aussie desert or up a mountain in Chile? Eta is probably just bright enough to trigger some colour receptors I guess, so Ill take your word for that! never been able to see a hint of colour there myself.

This was down in Southern Thailand in a not especially dark area.

Well there you go. maybe, given I have the most glorious view of Eta imaginable from here, I need to spend some time just laying on the ground looking at it to see if I can detect that hint! I have a special place for it in my brain as it is the first thing I took a 'proper' astrophotograph of, and sat there grinning like a fool as all the lovely colour appeared on my screen..